Double standards piracy? Pc vs consoles

Not to start a flame or war but honest discussion. I constantly hear and see people from both consoles (sony & Microsoft) calling PcGamers pirates including developers

Just to inform people who don't know EULA(T&C) clearly states that gamers /users never actually OWN a game or software, all they too is ACTUALLY pay for a LICENSE to use it & also the game is valid for 1 USER= 1COPY ONLY

Before this goes into furthur debate, alot of console gamers engage in Softlifting (providing the program/game to multiple users or even sell it baq to recuperate their money,also known as end user piracy or softloading)

end of the question is why are some console gamers & developers such hypocrites & double standard when they call out pcgamers as pirates but allow piracy in another form of softlifting on consoles!? Why dont they call them out on their lack of ethics & piracy too?

No trolling, lets see what everyone has to say

They do try to fight used market, that's why MS wanted to prevent second hand game copies from working on other X1 systems, but never did that because of the massive uproar. Now they will try that again by eliminating physical copies. Plus, some devs said that people should pirate their games instead of buying used, as they don't see a penny anyway, but at least piracy would not fund the massive second hard markets.

Another thing, the PS1, PS2, 360 were rampant with real piracy (I remember when MS banned literally millions of hacked consoles from Live access), later the PS3 got hacked and people started pirating its games. Now some versions of the PS4 can be hacked as well to run pirated games, but no one is complaining about that for some reason (maybe because they thing that if the console does not support pirated copies out of the box, so to say, that it somehow is not a real issue?).

Mehh this topic might have been relevant 5-10 years ago imo. Most devs view pc as a very important ( if not the most important) platform to get their games out on and you don’t really hear the piracy complaint anymore....

On the same time consoles are fast becoming more and more digital like pc, so second hand market is a fraction of what it used to be.

This topic is about to be void when streaming takes over in the not so distant future.

You’re about 3 years too late.

@Yams1980: not selll but share. I believe if u add 7 users as family members they can access your library or game share. However i think both cant play the game simultaneously

@rmpumper: i do believe that was the main purpose of season passes. But its kinda strange with some gamers. Pirating (selling used games) & justfying it & calling other platformers pirates. Kinda pot calling kettle black scenario

@that_old_guy: streaming 1dt world countties and proab metropolitan areas. Else its still a loong way to go to be effective.

This is so stupid as its a hermits way to try and sling mud at us console gamers. Its simple I buy the game at a store therefore its mine and I can sell, rent, give, share with who ever I want and cannot be prosecuted by the law.

Now you hermits actually steal because you get the game without paying for it, that's the difference here.

So to be 100% clear I can buy a game and share it with 5 friends and the devs get money from the initial purchase, and if you hermits steal a game and just keep it to yourself, well then the dev gets nothing at all.

They at least have to buy a game once and is limited to play at any one point in time for Physical Media?

I don't call PC gamers pirates though. It's clear that not all of them are. I daresay more are just legal f2pers.

Well selling used games or lending that physical copy of a game is not piracy in any shape or form so yeah there’s really no hypocrisy there.

Because pirating is like.. stealing.. and stuff.

^ The only argument anti piracy people have.

@Archangel3371: read the def of softlifting & eula(t&c) You only paying a license and u cannot rent, sell or give it to another user. That's all software terms and conditions from behining time

@i_p_daily: you bought 1 copy and gave it to your friends. U prevented the dev from earing money from 5 more copies.

@caj1986: Umm yeah but no. I’m going to have to go with what the law defines as piracy and selling used games or lending them to others ain’t it. When you buy a game you purchase the license to use it. If you sell it then you forfeit those rights to someone else. Same with lending. No two people have the rights to play that specific copy of the game at the same time nor have they taken the rights to play that copy without paying for it, ie. they haven’t stolen it. There’s no double standard from anyone on this topic because there is no legal ground to declare such.

@Archangel3371: you technically cannot resell it. you may refund if you didnt use it according to the dev /publishers or found the product faulty but you cant plain re sell it. to quote sony T& C

There are a lot of questions that reasonable people can disagree on, but this isn't one of them. It's nice to see that people thou read Sony's Terms of Service:

"...all content and software provided through PSN are licensed non-exclusively and revocably to you, your children and children for whom you are a legal guardian ..., solely for Your personal, private, non-transferable, non-commercial, limited use on a limited number of activated ... systems"

I've omitted some bits for brevity, but that's the gist. That's for the US PSN, but I'd bet it's substantially the same elsewhere.

I think that Star Citizen alone should exempt PC gamers from piracy complaints. Apparently there is so much money being moved around. So much money that PC gamers will willingly throw at a project that is only conceptual but sounds cool. It reminds me of the Wii library. 90% of it was shit, but does that matter when 10% isn't? No of course not, because you don't need to play that 90% at all. That's the way I look at PC piracy. There are so many paying customers, that the existence of pirates on the platform just doesn't matter at all.

This doesn't mean anything. The law overrides the EULA. We own the game. We can do anything we want with the game as long as we don't share it for most countries. In the EU in a lot of country's the EULA means nothing because its technically a contract, one that you are unaware of until AFTER the time of purchase which make invalid.

They do know that but claim they don't ^^

Typical hermits hasbara, they forfeit their rights on their physical media and want all gamers to do the same!!!

Bringing the so called Devs loss is also part of it but we all know and see through their BS.

And you pirated the game on PC and gave the dev no MONEY.

What if I lent the game to 5 friends and 3 of them liked it and went & bought their own copies, and the other 2 didn't like it, so that 1 copy sold goes up to 4, and yet you pirated the game and the dev still gets no MONEY, either way you herms try to slice it, if you get the game through illegal means you are a thief and the dev doesn't get any MONEY.

How many times must we got over it before you get it???

If you didn't pay for it and it wasn't given to you then yes you are a thief.

You hermits are so pathetic that there was a thread where a game was going exclusive for 1yr on the Epic store (the newest Metro game I think) and all you hermits were saying is that people should pirate the game to teach the devs a lesson, so spare us the BS.

@i_p_daily: what makes you say people dont buy aftet they pirate. Lots of pcgamers do it to well demo the game then buy the finished product. The stat u said exactly proved mybpoint above.

@i_p_daily: agreed d metro exclusive is bs, but by ur above logic, stealing is fine as long as u dont get caught In the act In short u guys have logic of convenience. To summarise the above no co is dumb enought to draft a EULA where the co forfeit their rights as soon as the consumer buys the product. The law are olaced & matter jus that be lucky NOT STRICTLY ENFORCED

This topic is 2000-N-Late

lol, piracy.

If it's not video games, it's gold doubloons.

Point? Piracy is as old as commerce, and is not going any where. Using it as an excuse simply means you're a lazy shit that can't protect your product in a fair manner.

It's funny because I feel it's been a good 10 years since it's been a real topic of concern. Sure, we still have DRM and anti-piracy measures, but as far as it being an excuse to do something draconian or to not bring a title to a certain platform, meh.

Alot of pc gamers try to badly apply some sort of rebellion Robin Hood mentality to it,when really, they were just planning on stealing that shit anyway. it's a culture developed since the early 90's. The term "gamer entitlement" gets bound around alot, usually by some jerkoff trying to defend a game company doing horrible shit, but in this case, I actually would apply that term.

@mrbojangles25: when printing presses were invented in the 1st century. Romans did raids for piracy. That's how old it is. Over nearly 2000 years old and people think it can be stopped lol.

Piracy should be expected when sailing the.... Pee Salty Seas. lol :P

Would be awesome if gamers took a stand against shittery by pirating instead of just letting shittery happen, and even fucking award it. The best would be to not pay for it on Epic store, and then pay for it when it arrives on Steam. But that's just me. Whether a person don't pay simply by not getting the game or if they don't pay and play a pirated copy is totally and utterly irrelevant to me. I simply don't give any sort of shit about that, since the outcome of not paying is the same either way. Blindly go "pirating is stealing, stealing is bad" and not be able to think longer than that is not very impressive. You think what I say is bullshit, I think what you say is bullshit. There isn't really any point for us to argue about this.

Piracy is a service problem too (other than just being a thief) Valve recognised it. The Music Industry recognised it. The TV industry recognised it (except piracy is likely to make a resurgence as we currently have an issue with too many subscription servers).

So yea, developers/publishers/re-sellers paying for exclusives should be boycotted ... The sheer feature difference in EPIC games store and STEAM store is light-years apart. ultimately even if the games were the same price on the stores, the perceived VALUE us less and the consumer is suffering.

Its the equivilant of me wanting to buy the latest PS4 game from amazon/online and finding out friggin GAME store has paid to sell it exclusively... the f*cks the point? they didn't make or publish the game.

I am so sick of seeing this BS! Not all PC gamers are thieves you know. I'm pro-convenience, I buy PC games because having them in my Steam/GOG, ect libraries is very convenient. The gaming industry got this right.

According to a large study done by EU researchers, there's no evidence that piracy damages sales of games. The idea that every pirated game is a lost sale was always stupid and I'd argue there are some companies, where actually supporting them financially is less moral than stealing the games. Square Enix comes to mind, specifically the case of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. As for the argument that things like Microtransactions in full price titles are fine because games are priced the same as before and more expensive to make. The game industry itself is responsible for the increased prices. They spent a decade hyping people up about the newest Graphics and now they complain that many customers only care about visual fidelity and really, with all the deluxe editions and day 1 DLC, $60 doesn't even come close to getting you the entire game. And that's ignoring the fact that the industry was already more profitable than it ever was before. While games are more expensive to make, there are also a lot more people buying them. I support Indie developers, though. They really need the money more then AAA Developers.

It's easy to see how some people would jump at the opportunity to proclaim themselves as "freedom fighters" against corporate tyranny and think of themselves as cool and oh so smart for pirating a game instead of, you know... Making a company that provides the service on the level they expect. It's easy to wait on a sale after release cause it takes weeks to see a price drop and buying CDKeys doesn't take away developers money anyways so yeah.

Piracy is much more prominent in countries with lower base income compared to first world countries. But TBF, EULA means nothing in the end. There are national laws that encompass over that.

That's why I like steam and their (mostly) good regional pricing.

U buy it at a shop that sells you a second handed copy where no money goes towards the dev. Aka gamestop copy's.

You are stealing.

You cannot trade or share or do anything like that, read the license agreement. You are stealing.

So basically you are a thief and should feel bad. And even worse you paid company's to support these practices even more.

Devs lose a hell lot more money through selling used copy's towards new consumers then digital download piracy. Because digital download piracy can't be proven. The other one can.

Why do you think digital market on PC is massive pretty much as big as all consoles combined. Because they killed of second handed market which is by far the biggest "piracy" issue of them.

But nice job spinning tho.

Devs ask to much money for a game, people will move somewhere else or pirate it. Even if they do pirate it, it can't be proven to be a sale to start with.

If a guy in his moms basement downloads 3000 movies. Do you honestly think that kid would have paid for 3000 movies if he couldn't download them? He doesn't even have money.

The problem with company's is that they refuse to offer what consumers want and die out as result. And company's that do recognized this will started services that blow up massively.

Spotify

Netflix

Steam

Key sale sites.

Good examples of it.

Also free to play games, removed the barrier of people not knowing if they like it or not and make it far more easier for people to join into. Which is massive on PC that rake in far more money then any console ever will.

Either offer what consumers want, or get left in the dirt.

Ur so called fake elitist morals are just that, a joke. And the market proofs this.

Because pc gamers use pirating as a threat. When is the last time you heard some one say they will pirate God of war or forza to teach the devs something?

Eh, some PC gamers. You do realize that console piracy is prevalent in many 2nd/3rd world countries... Right? That's directly related to stupidly high prices in those countries.

Nobody in the first world pirates on PC anymore. Steam (and other stores to stay competitive) give AAA games away for pennies now.

@lundy86_4: I live in Greece and have a hacked ps3 so I'm somewhat familiar with console pirating. But you don't see me telling Sony I'll pirate their game for making it 60 bucks.

@Ant_17: Vocal minority versus a less vocal minority. At the end of the day, spread the shit all around. Piracy exists regardless, but I feel that threatening piracy is trying to advocate more of a change than just out-and-out doing it...

Obviously, i'm not advocating shit.

@lundy86_4: no. The only thing voicing your piracy is ruining your platform, as seen with rdr 2 still not on it. I agree advocating is the stupidest thing a person can do, but pc gamers take pride in telling people they will do it which is why we call them pirates, cause they ride the flag proudly. If they have an issue, stfu.

Voicing your intent to pirate, as opposed to just actually pirating is what ruins the platform? That makes zero sense. One would advocate an actual change, whereas the other just benefits from zero change. Pirates are people who copy software and utilize it, regardless of platform... Pirates don't solely exist on PC. Console users pirate software, then they are pirates.

That whole post was a bit nonsensical.

@lundy86_4: well it's a perspective. If we say that we will pirate but not do it, what does it matter? The devs aren't going to check if we did it, they will just dissmis us as pirates because we said it. Which is why voicing it only brings a negative effect.

@lundy86_4: your right. the question is why associate piracy with only pc? why dont you see developers calling out other platforms to? that the main AIM and point of this post. all devs claim to combat piracy(denuvo, season passes, always online drm,activations). you dont see those measures on other platforms? why d bias?

@caj1986: Consoles themselves are DRMs. Tho, there are already hacked consoles floating around, and a lot of piracy also happens on consoles. Not as big as PC tho cos pirating is still easier on PC.

Devs or more likely publishers loss not ours.

What happened to Epic beating their chests about piracy on PC and justifying Xbox exclusivity? Why are they now trying to get a piece of the same pie?

What happened to Crytek, they went to consoles for the same reason and in the process actually lost their original audience and always went bankrupt? Why is it their latest game is currently PC exclusive and begin on PC?

What happened to Ubisoft, calling PC gamers as pirates and always online DRM? Funny more people pirated when always online was required than without it? Why for the last some years they are calling PC as their most important platform for growth?

It doesn't always brings a negative effect as proven in many always online DRMs or shitty services like GFWL. Pretty soon history will repeat it self for Epic store. Either they improve it significantly or go to the way of GFWL.

Hermits going hardcore stupid in here to protect the people stealing, saying that piracy doesn't hurt sales etc, yeah not much more needs to be said.

Of course it hurts sales. Who says it doesn't? It's just not 1 pirated copy = 1 lost sale. Many who pirate never intended to buy the game even if they couldn't pirate it.

As a PC gamer, I just don't pay those high prices. I'll just vote with my wallet and not play the game. Maybe if it's on sale sometime...

It's kind of why I don't game on consoles anymore. Games are just too much now and with the season passes as well.

That said, there are those sites which sell cheaper steam keys. They aren't piracy, more like exploiting a loophole I think. Haven't used one yet.

@pc_rocks: those weren't caused by pirating. If you have an issue with how they fleec, be a pirate, just don't act surprised when we call you a pirate.

This is a pretty weak attempt to rebut the critique IMO.

I'm a PC Gamer and I don't pirate games. That's my defense, rather than trying to deflect the blame to people selling their used discs to Gamestop.

Actually Ubisoft's always online DRM was reversed because it actually increase piracy and reduced sales. That's what actually happened.

I don't care what you or your fellow consolites call me. The results speak for themselves - PC gaming is growing while consoles are shrinking. The people who called us and treated as pirates are now begging for our attention. Refer to my previous post for examples.